A recent study done by OneUpWeb showed that both searchers looking to make a purchase and searchers looking for information largely ignored the real time search results. The results showed that 73% of the participants had never heard of real time search results and by looking at the eye movements of the two different groups of searchers it was determined that the real time search results were ignored by the majority of searchers. As is expected the largest amount of eyes looked at the top of the results page.

This could be for two reasons, I think. The first reason would be that searchers are familiar with Google and generally know that the most relevant and trustworthy results will be at the top of the page, and secondly the majority of searchers were not aware of the real time search results and therefore would not be looking out for them or would not understand what they were for or how they could use them.

I do have one concern about the study however. Its participants were asked to search for a product that they were looking to purchase or to gather information on a product. Real time search results are more relevant in my opinion to searches that contain current news story keywords like ‘Tiger Woods mistress’ or “David Beckham Achilles tendon’. In these searches you can get a quick update as to what is happening rather than making informed decisions regarding your future purchases.

Real time search results have been around since the end of 2009 and questions need to be asked. Are they useful to Google users or just a gimmick that looks good on the surface? And will they become more important once more consumers become aware of them?

You can read the full white paper here

Searchers are blind to Real Time Search is a post from: Tamar

Google’s Pagerank adapted to prioritise tweeters is a post from: Tamar

Put simply, the real-time web is instant. You do something and the system you are interacting with knows what you have done, does what it does and lets the rest of the web know with near zero delay. A good example of this would be Twitter. You post your Tweet and seconds later your Tweet appears in search results and all your followers can see it. Facebook has similar qualities but applied in a much wider range of interactions yet based on the same principles.

Imagine all of your online experiences having the same kind of response. The web would become less linear and more like a conversation. This is already happening with Twitter becoming so popular but fundamentally Twitter is talking about things and not interacting with them.

The challenge is to use the real-time qualities the web offers in things other than social media.

If you build it, they will come

There are a few technologies being explored in the creation of the real-time web.

The first is XMPP (Extensible Messaging and Presence Protocol) which is the most popular at the moment and is based on instant messaging which has a proven track record. This is what Twitter uses.

The second is SUP (Simple Update Protocol) which was developed by FriendFeed (recently purchased by Facebook) which works in a similar way to RSS but integrates a ‘push’ technology and notifies you when there is something new for you.

Another contender is GNIP (http://www.gnip.com/) which is designed to sit in between the services that are updated, and the applications expecting updates, providing one access point to multiple streams of real-time data.

This means that applications can be developed that don’t have to actively check each service like they do at the moment. Facebook for the iPhone is likely to be the first to achieve push notifications through a mobile application with any real demonstration of large scale deployment. Even Google’s recent push email update for the iPhone has been plagued with problems of inconsistency with the notifications.

Searching in real-time

There are a few tools that you can try to test the current state of the real-time search. Most of them use Twitter or other social network sites for their up-to-the-second results as these are the places that provide the most of that type of information.

There is a site called Scoopler (http://www.scoopler.com/) which is a real-time search engine. It sounds impressive but again it’s really only a searching sites like Twitter and Delicious and pulling out two sets of results. One set showing the most recent results (mostly from Twitter) and the other showing the most popular results, a good combination and the only way real-time search could really ever work; traditional search results supplemented by up-to-the-second results.

A similar effect can be achieved with a Greasemonkey script (available here) that integrates a Twitter search into Google results to show you related Tweets to your query. While most results tend to be irrelevant, you do find the occasional Tweet that is helpful, especially when trying to find answers or information about problems or current events.

Then there is the problem of accuracy and authority. Real-time search is all about searching for the most recent, up-to-the-second information. As the information is so new there is no way to determine if the information is accurate or relevant in the way that Google does so well. Twitter has tried with trending topics but some are perpetuated with Tweets asking why something is a trending topic.

What about Google?

Google is closing the gap between traditional and real-time search with the ability to filter your results by time including ‘recent results’, ‘past 24 hours’, ‘past week’, ‘past month’ and ‘past year’. They introduced an option to set a specific date rage to search and also the option for results from the previous hour. It is unlikely Google will go any further due to the types of content their search engine indexes.

If the real-time is the way forward, how does this affect SEO? The current process of SEO involves keywords, anchor text, URL structures, link building etc. but the only thing likely to survive into real-time search would be keywords. Something that, by itself, is incapable of giving any real benefit except showing you the most recent matches. Google and most of the major search engines would probably argue that there is more benefit in finding sites naturally through links because a site that has no links is likely a site not worth indexing. Perhaps a combination of social recommendations from friends / people you follow, recent results and authoritative sites could work.

But what happens when someone spams the real-time web? Considering the search results are chronologically ranked in terms of freshness, there may be very little people could do to avoid it. Twitter has struggled with this and a number of spam Tweets have, at times, become trending topics. Could it be as easy as adding a CAPCHA form before posting? Would that have a detrimental effect on the experience of Tweeting? And what would happen with all the third party applications that make Tweeting a pleasure?

There is certainly room for more real-time applications and ways to utilise the unique, searchable and instant qualities of real-time but it is most likely going to be geared even further towards the social aspect of the web. It will be interesting to see how new distribution models form through the real-time delivery of data to applications.

In conclusion, if Google thought real-time search was a good idea, I’m sure they would have already done it and the most useful aspect of the real-time web will be that of content delivery. The traditional web indexing and SEO techniques will live to fight another day. That is until the web gains intelligence. What happens when the web truly understands what you want?

Is real-time the future of the web? is a post from: Tamar

FriendFeed

First up on Monday (while I was still trawling through 1000+ e-mails!) was the announcement that Facebook had acquired the “sharing service” FriendFeed. You can read the official press release from Facebook for the full details of the deal (well, as much details as you ever get in these things) but I preffered the way Bret Taylor of FriendFeed announced it on their company blog:

“As my mom explained to me, when two companies love each other very much, they form a structured investment vehicle…”

There’s very little firm confirmation as to how the move will affect FriendFeed users yet, though plenty of speculation is taking place on all the usual sites. The Guardian for instance point out that one of the big bonuses for Facebook in the deal is the three ex-Googlers who they will now have on board. Valeria Maltoni seems convinced that FriendFeed will disappear pretty swiftly once the acquisition is complete. And the New York Daily News also points out that FriendFeed’s real-time search will be a big gain for Facebook (more on that below!). One thing is for sure though – Facebook are clearly stepping up their game in an attempt to counter the metioric rise of Twitter…

Real-time search

Then, very late on Monday evening, Facebook announced they would be rolling-out their new real-time search to all users, after a month-long trial with a select group of Facebookers. According to the blog:

“You now will be able to search the last 30 days of your News Feed for status updates, photos, links, videos and notes being shared by your friends and the Facebook Pages of which you’re a fan. If people have chosen to make their content available to everyone, you also will be able to search for their status updates, links and notes, regardless of whether or not you are friends. Search results will continue to include people’s profiles as well as relevant Facebook Pages, groups and applications.”

I can already see the privacy campaigners and Daily Mail readers reaching for their pens to write their complaint letters – and until we’ve seen the true power of the new service, who is to say they will be wrong? People are speculating that the new feature brings Facebook much closer to the search facility that Twitter has, but the trouble with this new development is the way people expect their data to be shared. On Twitter, people generally all know that what they put out (unless through a DM) is public, indexable and searchable – and crucially, viewable to anybody who looks at their profile. Facebook users on the other hand are used to their privacy being “sacred” to Facebook, and millions of users could be set to discover that the default security options they have chosen are going to leave their status updates, notes and links visable by anybody on the network.



[The funniest (and most ironic?) thing I found when doing a few example searches using the new facility was that the majority of the results were from people who have their status updates set to automatically populate from their Twitter account!]

Facebook Lite

The third big announcement (apparently “broken” by the guys over at Mashable) from Facebook came this morning with the rumours about “Facebook Lite”. It’s unclear what Facebook Lite will be (though most speculation points to it being a further move to compete with Twitter – jeez, these guys are obsessed…!) but a number of users have been presented with the following message when logging in this week:

“You have been selected as a beta tester for Facebook Lite! We are building a faster, simpler version of Facebook that we call Facebook Lite. It’s not finished yet and we have plenty of kinks to work out, but we would love to get your feedback on what we have built so far. Check out Facebook Lite now at http://lite.facebook.com.”

[You'll notice when you click the link that site seems to have been taken down again, at least it seems that way for me]

Have *you* been invited to Facebook Lite? If so, what do you think of it?

FriendFeed, Search and Lite – Facebook is having a busy week is a post from: Tamar